29

EMPLOYEE RELATIONS

TOWNSHIPS

Wish you were here

ach city is an archetype rather
than a prototype, an exaggerated
example from which to derive
lessons for the typical, said American
architect Robert Venturi. The cities and
towns that the Tatas have created
around some of their industrial facilities
reflect an originality in conception and
execution that bears out the truth of
Mr Venturis contention.
Jamshedpur, Mithapur, Babrala,
Mathigiri and Magadi are unique in
their own ways, different from one
another in tone, tenor and character,
but there is a similarity of principle
that underpins all five mere
functionality has taken a backseat to a
blending of the practical and the
aesthetic with the environment in
which these centres are rooted.
There is more to the environment
than the ground beneath and beyond
where the cities sit; there is what can be
called the people factor. The Tata
townships are tangible manifestations of
a commitment to employees that

stretches much further than any formal

or mandated contract. They are symbols
of an all-encompassing relationship
between company and employee that
incorporates workplace, home and family.
Just as importantly, they are catalysts for
the development of the regions and the
people beyond their suburbs.
The Tata companies that sustain
these cities are cast in the mould of
caretakers rather than gatekeepers.
This attitude has allowed Jamshedpur
and its siblings to grow and prosper in a
manner that befits the particular
circumstances of their individual
evolution, without being encumbered
by any unilateral doctrine. The stories
that follow explain how.

Jamshedpur
The origins of Jamshedpur, home
today to the majority of Tata Steels
operations and a significant part of
Tata Motors, is tied to an idea
espoused by Jamsetji Tata, the Tata
founder. Writing to his son, Dorab

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Jamshedpur: This township with a heart provides its residents the best of facilities

Tata, in 1902 about his concept of a

city for the workers of the proposed
Tata Steel plant, he stated: Be sure to
lay wide streets planted with shady
trees, every other of a quick-growing
variety. Be sure that there is plenty of
space for lawns and gardens. Reserve
large areas for football, hockey and
parks. Earmark areas for Hindu
temples, Mohammedan mosques and
Christian churches.
Jamsetji Tata had passed away by
the time Jamshedpur came into being,
but his spirit of caring and giving has
come to represent the nature of the
city. This was a cluster of tribal
settlements before it began the journey
of morphing into an industrial hub and

a model for modern Indias urban

landscape and lifestyle.
Thanks to this transformation, the
city holds the key to the inherent
competitive advantages that the
company enjoys. Tata Steel attracts the
best talent in the country because of
the lifestyle provided in this oasis in the
middle of nowhere.
Tata Steel maintains Jamshedpurs
public utilities much like a
municipality, only better. It takes care
of road maintenance, water and
electricity supply, streetlights,
healthcare, sanitation and more. The
standard of these activities is so good
that Tata Steel floated Jusco as a
separate entity so as to share its

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EMPLOYEE RELATIONS

knowledge and expertise, which is

unparalleled in the country.
The water here is of such high
quality that Jamshedpur is one of the
few Indian cities where one can drink
directly from the tap. Tata Steel
arranges for the cleaning up of over
95,000 tonnes of garbage a year,
keeping the city squeaky clean. It
provides electricity well enough for
residents to take the service for
granted. The company also spends
Rs25 crore a year on the Tata Main
Hospital, which takes care of the
health of employees as well as of the
general public.
Jamshedpur is among the greenest
of Indias cities, with a plethora of
parks, playgrounds and tree-lined
streets. It is also an exemplar in
education, having a literacy rate 75
per cent that is unparalleled in
eastern India. Tata Steel runs eight
primary schools, nine high schools and
a college, while supporting many more
schools indirectly. Community
initiatives are as high on the Tata
agenda as education and this has
spawned a wide variety of programmes,
most notably on Aids awareness and
drug abuse.
The Tatas spend about Rs50 crore
annually on keeping Jamshedpur in the
pink of health. That, evidently, is not
good enough, given that plans are
being prepared, with the help of
renowned architect Karan Grover, to
improve the city further. This is in the
Tata tradition of town planning,

TOWNSHIPS

pioneered in India almost a century

back, through the Jamshedpur model,
by architect FC Temple.
Complementing the contribution
that Tata Steel has made to
Jamshedpur is Tata Motors, which has
a 1,200-acre township of its own within
the precincts of the city. Tata Motors
provides accommodation to all its
employees and there are about 40,000
residents in the township. There are
facilities for water treatment and
sewage disposal, a well-equipped
hospital with 404 beds, dispensaries,
markets, a sports stadium,
playgrounds, parks and recreation
centres, academies for theatre, music
and dance, and a hobby hub that
fosters creativity in employees and
their families.
Tata Motors extends financial aid
to more than 30 local schools and also
runs Asha Kiran, a special school
where more than 130 disabled children
find succour.

Mithapur and Babrala

Tata Chemicals has created two
centres around its operations in India:
Mithapur in coastal Gujarat and
Babrala in Uttar Pradesh. Distinct in
layout and geography, Mithapur and
Babrala serve the needs and
requirements of the companys
chemicals and fertilisers plants
respectively.
The Mithapur story began in 1939,
when the Tatas took over the Okha Salt
Works. Okhamandal, the region where

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Mithapur: The township for Tata Chemicals employees is designed to please

Mithapur is situated, was an

undeveloped and desolate place where
many kingdoms and civilisations had
thrived in the past. Mithapur, privately
owned by Tata Chemicals, is part of
the 5,398-acres of freehold land
obtained in the 1930s from the
government of the erstwhile princely
state of Baroda.
The town square at Mithapur, from
where roads branch out in many
directions, is symbolic of the central
place the company enjoys in this
community comprising employees and
their families, teachers and merchants.
Spread across 663 acres of land,
Mithapur enjoys the advantages of
urban infrastructure along with the
beauty of its idyllic surroundings.
A department within Tata
Chemicals takes care of Mithapurs
administration. This department is
responsible for developing and
maintaining residential houses,
schools, medical facilities, public

spaces and welfare and sports activities.

Mithapur has a high school, three
primary schools, and one pre-school;
together they provide education to
some 5,000 children and employment
to over 200 teachers.
A well-equipped hospital, a mobile
clinic, a family-planning unit and childimmunisation centres look after the
healthcare needs of company employees
as well as the people living in the 42
villages of Okhamandal. Other facilities
include a marketplace, a hospital and a
cinema hall. The town has an
assortment of parks and gardens, and a
2-km-long beach. The two lakes at its
outskirts attract a variety of migratory
birds in the winter months.
Tata Chemicals operates all the
municipal services in the town, and
delivers an uninterrupted supply of
electricity from its captive cogeneration power plant. The company
provides for the cultural and
recreational needs of the community

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EMPLOYEE RELATIONS

through the libraries, clubs, cinemas,

playgrounds and public gardens it has
established. To cater to the diverse
needs of its staff and the local
community, Tata Chemicals supports,
through grants, a large number of
social and cultural institutions.
Water is a precious commodity in
Mithapur, which falls in the droughtprone Jamnagar district. Water is
recycled back to a flush-pumping
station and used to nourish plants and
maintain gardens.
Fourteen hundred kilometres to the
north of Mithapur, in the midst of a
densely forested area, lies Babrala,
developed in 1991 when Tata Chemicals
fertiliser plant was set up here.
This settlement is home to nearly
500 employees and their families. This,
too, is an urban dwelling in a rural
setting. Wide roads and a green
environment characterise the town
layout. Nearly 70 per cent of the land
was converted into a green cover with a
quarter million trees. The company has

TOWNSHIPS

Babrala: An urban oasis

planted 2,80,000 trees and 1,05,000

shrubs leading to almost 3.8 lakh
square metres of green cover. Tata
Chemicals has provided plenty of
amenities in Babrala: spacious houses,
a shopping centre, a clubhouse, a
library, and health and sports facilities.
The DAV Public School instructs
students in both English and Hindi.
Environment is a key issue in
Babrala and Mithapur, both of which
are ISO-14001 certified. The emphasis
is on waste reduction, proper garbage

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disposal and conservation of natural

resources. Environmental awareness
drives are held regularly and both
towns have a no plastics policy.

Magadi
The newest member of the Tata
Chemicals family is the Magadi Soda
Company (MSC) in Magadi, Kenya.
Magadi lies deep inside lands
reserved for the Maasai tribe, first
sealed through agreement by the
colonial British government in 1911.
The tribe has always had great
expectations of MSC and the company
strives to fulfil these.
MSC runs a robust corporate
sustainability programme that
spearheads development initiatives for
the community. The company focuses on
water, education, health, employment,
business, transport and infrastructural
issues. Towards this end, it has

introduced many initiatives for the

betterment of the community in Magadi.
MSC supplies clean drinking water
to the local community, schools and
health centres within its environs. It
has also made arrangements for a
potable-water pipeline from Magadi
township to the outlying Ilparakuo
village 7km away. Water is transported
by truck daily to community centres,
schools and dispensaries up to 30km
away. A train operated by the company
delivers water thrice a week to people
residing within a radius of 60km.
The company also supports the
community by maintaining the Sampu
pipeline and repairing the Elangata
Wuas community borehole. In addition,
it put in place a pipeline from Magadi
to Oldonyonyokie.
MSC has made many significant
efforts to offer good quality education
to the community. It set up four

Magadi: The guesthouse of the Magadi Soda Company in Kenya

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EMPLOYEE RELATIONS

schools in Magadi township. It

supports primary schools in the
construction of classes and the
provision of learning and teaching
facilities. It also provides scholarships
for tertiary/university education to
students from Kajiado district and
runs an adult education programme.
A 60-bed hospital in Magadi
serves the community well. The
company further subsidises
healthcare in the hospital by up to
70 per cent. It has undertaken health
awareness and vaccination campaigns
and has worked long and hard to
spread awareness on Aids.
MSC has reserved a percentage of
jobs in its operations for the local
community. The Magadi
Multipurpose Cooperative Society was
established in 2003 to create wealth
for the local community through
enterprise development. The
cooperative offers its members
income, employment and business
training. The cooperative also
provides savings and credit services to
the members as a way of promoting
investment.
The company runs a rail
passenger coach for local community
transport between Magadi and
Kajiado. It maintains both the 146-km
railway line from Magadi to Konza as
well as the 86-km Magadi-Kiserian
Road, besides helping maintain many
rural roads.
Through all these efforts and
more, MSC has proved its strong

TOWNSHIPS

commitment to the people of Magadi.

Mathigiri
In the late 1980s, Titan zeroed in
on Hosur in Tamil Nadus
impoverished Dharmapuri district for
its manufacturing operation. Several
companies followed in its wake and the
influx of industrial workers put a
severe strain on the infrastructure in
the area.
While mapping the needs of its
burgeoning employee community,
Titan discovered that housing
resources were meagre and
substandard. Having provided its
large, young workforce with decent
disposable incomes, Indias top
watchmaker was now faced with the
task of meeting the requirement of
enjoyable living.
In 1991 Titan established a
township spread over 110 acres at
Mathigiri. Constructed with the help of
acclaimed architect Charles Correa, it
was designed in a manner that blended
urban landscapes with the semi-rural
milieu of the region, from where the
majority of the companys employees
came. The company did not want to
unsettle its employees by providing a
totally urban environment.
Currently about 480 families live
at Mathigiri, which has rows of duplex
houses arranged in clusters around
landscaped courtyards. Every house
has an open space in the front and a
private garden in a common courtyard
at the back. There is a conveniently

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Mathigiri: A complete planned town

located shopping centre, a medical

clinic, a sprawling recreation centre
and other facilities aimed at
encouraging a vibrant communal life.
Blacktopped roads and landscaped
common areas make this area pleasing
to the eye.
The company also addresses the
education needs of this community.
The Titan School, started in 2001, has
close to 700 children in classes ranging

from pre-primary to the tenth

standard. This school has an
alternative approach and
emphasises holistic rather
than merely academic
education. Children use the
unconventional sight and
phonetic reading method to
learn. The school has no
examinations till the fourth
standard; it believes in the
integrated curriculum
approach that does not burden
a child, but allows for total
personality development.
The company was also able
to employ its spirit for
innovation to circumvent some
of the problems it encountered.
Water shortage, the norm in
Hosur, is unheard of in
Mathigiri. This is because
Titan had invested in more
than 50 rainwater-harvesting
pits to raise the water table
level. Arbitrary digging for bore
wells is prohibited while
gardening and landscaping are
done with recycled water.
The city is a fact in nature, like a
cave, a run of mackerel or an ant-heap,
said the late American philosopher
Lewis Mumford. But it is also a
conscious work of art Having
evolved from a deep consciousness of
how interdependent a company and its
stakeholders are, the cities and towns
that the Tatas have built reinforce
Mr Mumfords hypothesis.